Baseball Roots

My father was no baseball player. Did not know much about the game. Not his fault, his father passed away when he was 13 and he went to work to help the family. He dropped out of school after his freshman year (not sure if NY had high school baseball back then) and joined the service thus making me grow up as the son of a lowly enlisted man in the Coast Guard. He later did work his way through officers training school to earn an engineering degree.

My mother was the baseball fan. She was the one to inspire me. We probably played more games of catch thus making the movie "Field of Dreams" ineffective on me.

Sadly, neither one ever really saw me play much, not when it mattered. Not high school or college. My father left home when I turned 13 and my mother had her own issues through my young adult days.

But my father had ONE big thing to say to me about sports. Never a player, not much of a fan he did have ONE big comment about baseball and sports that has had the biggest impact on me. It probably had more to do with the hand he had been dealt in life than any insight into sports.

He had ONE word to describe sports and ONE word to measure who he liked on any given team. DESIRE. It never really mattered what kind of numbers a guy put up, or how good a guy was, My father was all about DESIRE. If a guy played hard, ran into walls, hustled and gave it his all, he was my father's guy. And they are my guys as well.

Show me what you got, give it your all and I am your biggest fan. It became the way I played, it has always been who I cheer for and it is what I hope to pass onto you.